


capable of saving your heart (this time)

by beepbedeep



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: BEING AN ADULT IS SO SAD, F/M, For All Of Them, NO ONE CRIES HERE!!!!, SO THIS IS HAPPY, for toph and sokka!!, happy endings, not a fix it but not not a fix it?, rebuilding!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepbedeep/pseuds/beepbedeep
Summary: This isn’t a tragedy because they are connected, just like that, tied together with a rope forged from millions of tiny moments, not just dropping off of airships, but inside jokes at formal dinners, late nights working silently together in the council chambers, shoulders bumping as they walk across the city.
Relationships: Toph Beifong/Sokka
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	capable of saving your heart (this time)

There’s a version of this story that isn’t tragic. Everything still goes the same way, the same people leave, the same words are hurled across the same rooms, but if you watch long enough, they always come back. Always. Toph and Aang never feel the absence of parents as keenly as Sokka and Katara do, Toph hated hers and Aang never had them to begin with, but on their bitterest nights Sokka usually finds his way to the same point _we lost our childhoods_. And Katara lifts her head, eyes dazed from indulging in this much resentment, _children are allowed to have parents_. They go back and forth like that, an unending list of Things We Missed.

 _Without parents, there’s no one to tell you, just because you’re all saving the world together now, just because these are the best friends you can possibly imagine having, that doesn’t mean you’ll always like each other. It doesn’t mean things will always be easy. But you’ll always have each other, you’ll always be connected, you’ll be able to find your way back._ A lifetime later, Sokka will grin at his sister, _if only we’d figured that out earlier._ But they do, eventually. And it’s true. Always. 

This isn’t a tragedy. There’s a girl with long hair, water twirling through her fingers, and an urge to heal the broken parts of people, and her brother with his wide smile, a lighting fast boomerang, and one rule, to keep everyone he loves safe. They meet a boy, skinny and sweet, covered in blue arrows and hypothetically the savoir of their people. But first, he is a boy, first he needs a hug and to relearn the world, so they _go on an adventure_ because someone’s gotta fix this mess. They meet a lot of enemies, but they also make a lot of friends – Suki whose eyes flash right before she’s about to tell a joke, who teaches them all so much even though she doesn’t have to, Zuko who starts as an enemy but whose piercing laugh finds his place among them, and _Toph_. Toph completes them, more than any of the others. She slides right into place, with her fists clenched, voice booming, razor sharp wit and literally earthshaking intensity making them all whole. 

This isn’t a tragedy. Their first year together ends in victory, it leaves room for an entire new reality, and maybe this is where the trouble starts, when the world doesn’t split so cleanly into good and bad anymore. There so much work to do, so much healing, and it’s all too clear that they are _children still_ , but they are the Firelord, the Avatar, a southern waterbender, the world’s first metalbender, and a warrior in the same breath so they take each other’s hands, roll up their sleeves, and get to work. 

This isn’t a tragedy. Yes, they don’t get as much time as a group after, spread out to every corner of the globe, between trips to every home, quests to preserve culture and rebuild peace, they are _busy_ , but they learn how many different places they belong and how they always find a way back to one another. Zuko makes sure everyone gets a seat at state dinner, Aang takes extra blankets every time he climbs onto Appa’s back in case someone else wants to tag along, Toph builds her academy close by, leaves the door open for anyone who can find it, Sokka tells stories of his friends as he placates confused leaders, and Katara brings her friends home every time she heads for the South Pole. 

They belong to each other. And when they do get together, everyone in the same place, they spend days caught in peals of laughter, doing the same stupid things they always have, and the time _passes_ , just like that.

This isn’t a tragedy. They get older and _yes_ , it’s hard, but they do it, and somehow they’re all adults, early twenty-somethings with whole lives and broken places that get easier to hide. They mean different things to each other now, Suki kissing Sokka goodbye for the last time, Aang smiling at his wife as she and Toph build new places to teach healers, Katara dusting snow off Aang’s shoulders, and Sokka falling onto Toph’s couch with a heavy sigh. She worries, sometimes, if it hurts him to be the only non-bender among them. She thinks about it so rarely, because he’s just _Sokka_ , he’s her best friend, she tells him stuff that’s too embarrassing to share with Katara and too salacious to admit to Aang, he just gets it. 

This isn’t a tragedy. He makes her smile, he’s so good at seeing when she’s overwhelmed and picking a few items off her back, he’s the _only_ person she ever goes to the ice with. He’s just Sokka, he the closest thing to home she’s ever had. But one if their best friends _is_ the Avatar, the peak of all bending, so sometimes Toph will rest her hand on his arm and rub small circles back and forth. 

She thinks he understand what she means, in the way he always understands her, _I love your bravado, but I love you more_.

Sokka grows into himself as much as any of them and along the way he mellows, his stance changes from boy to man, he doesn’t need to prove himself the same way he did at fifteen. Some days, on Airbender Island or when she’s close enough to the city council’s chambers, Toph will reach out and feel his heartbeat, rolling along the same way it has since they were both children, and thank all the gods that some things never change. 

This isn’t a tragedy. Katara has a _baby_ , and Aang hasn’t ever looked so happy. Sokka convinces Toph to visit the South Pole with him and holds her hand the entire time. She wears three layers of fur, a parka so big that he can barely see her face and he shows her how the snow feels, how their food smells, tells her silly jokes until she can’t help but laugh. She even gets along well with his family, Gran Gran, his friends from childhood and it’s not really a surprise, Toph knows how to turn on the charm when she needs to, but there’s _genuine_ interest on her face when she asks questions, appreciation for the way the snow smells. 

Nothing could make him love her less at this point, but something about her reaction to his home, his people, how her being here makes it the bets visit back he’s had in a long time, it pulls at something in his chest. He’s lucky, he’s so, so lucky. She sleeps curled in a ball next to him and he wraps his body around hers until they both fall asleep. Toph wakes up warm and happy, Sokka’s breath on her shoulder, his heartbeat rumbling across her skin. She breaths all the way into the corners of her lungs, her ice-imposed lack of vision isn’t nearly as bad when she’s wrapped up in bed like this and even as she shudders thinking about the flight home, a small part of her brain marvels at the _gift_ all of this is. 

She’s never had a home, not really, not a connection to the place or people she’s from and _certainly_ no desire to stay, but Sokka does. He does, and he took her with him, even though he knew she’d cling to him and complain, and she came, even though she knew how uncomfortable it would be. 

She loves him, she’s known this for years, but it’s only then that it strikes her what loving is to them. Aang and Katara deal in grand gestures, sappy expressions of love like the teenagers they used to be. Sokka is simply _here_ for her, holding her hand as she complains about the cold, because he loves her. And she came with him, to a place where she has to gingerly pick her way across the ground, for the exact same reason. 

She hopes Sokka knows that just as much as this is his home, he is hers.

This isn’t a tragedy because they are connected, _just like that_ , tied together with a rope forged from millions of tiny moments, not just dropping off of airships, but inside jokes at formal dinners, late nights working silently together in the council chambers, shoulders bumping as they walk across the city. A million little things, done just because they want to, because this is the only way anything feels right. (It’s how they’ve been, not as long as anyone can remember but as long as it’s _mattered_ , her hand in his even on solid ground.)

This isn’t a tragedy because that morning, as she unconsciously relaxes into the familiar feeling of his arms, Toph realizes something. They’re going to be just fine. 

This isn’t a tragedy because she’s right. 

This isn’t a tragedy. That doesn’t mean life isn’t hard, because it is. It _sucks_ because even as Kya starts talking Aang needs to take more trips away from his family and Bumi cries when they leave the city but Kya hates to leave the South Pole. But it’s _great_ because Katara loves her kids, and so does Aang, even when he’s far away, and when they run squealing across the grass or finally fall asleep Katara doesn’t think her body can contain this much love. Toph meets Katara for tea in her sunny kitchen on the island every week they’re in the city and their laughter could power every building in a five mile radius. Sokka wakes up next to Toph most mornings, kisses her neck until she laughs and kisses her again when they both walk out the door. Life is hard, but life is _sweet_.

This isn’t a tragedy. It doesn’t end in marriage either, because one morning Sokka blurts it out while Toph dances around the kitchen, _marry me_ , and in the space it takes for the ringing to leave her ears, for her to explain I can’t do that, _I can’t, I ran away from all of that when I was twelve_ for him to realize _none of that matters as long as I still get you_ , for them to slip back into their old easiness, Toph ends up pregnant, a casualty of her mad dash away from old demons. 

(None of them are quite as ok as they seem) 

And Sokka pulls her to his chest, says _I’m here for both of you, always_ , and easy as that they’re parents. (It doesn’t matter that Lin doesn’t share any of his genes, and it never will. She’s the prettiest baby he’s ever seen and Toph melts just as much as he does around Lin’s watchful eyes and impossibly tiny hands. This is their life and somehow every part of it is good.) 

This isn’t a tragedy. Their little family gets less little, first Tenzin, then Izumi, and finally Su. Aang begins his quest to impart _all_ of airbender tradition onto a toddler, but he still smiles at Bumi and Kya when they can’t see, Katara hugs all of her kids the same, (plus all of everyone’s kids, sweet Aunt Katara never fails to be a hit) The kids tumble over each other on the beach, Bumi and much smaller Izumi leading the charge, their parents always close by, always together, Toph smirking at Katara’s last comment while Sokka genetly chuckles next to her and Aang grinning at his wife like she hung the stars. (Even all these years later it’s the only way he looks at her, because all of them are made to _last_.) 

Growing pains mean good things are happening, and even as their lives get more complicated no one is ever lonely. 

This isn’t a tragedy, but that doesn’t stop Hakoda from dying. Toph finds out when Katara shows up at her front door, kids in tow, and collapses into Toph’s arms saying something about _he’s dead, everyone’s in the Fire Kingdom and he’s dead and-_ Toph holds her as tightly as possible and wishes Sokka and Aang had gone to meet with Zuko _literally any other week_.

And then she does the thing she’s almost good at doing now, because she loves Katara like she loves her bending, she brings her friend inside and makes her drink some water, sets all the kids up with the toys she keeps here just for them, and spends the rest of the day letting Katara cry on her shoulder, praying that their boys get back soon. 

It’s only that night when Toph’s about to fall asleep, Bumi snoring on the couch, Kya asleep in Lin’s room and the faint sounds of Tenzin’s giggling coming from under Su’s door, Katara’s breath next to her instead of Sokka’s (because sad women get to have sleepovers like teenage girls) that she thinks back to what she knows about the Southern Water Tribe, about their chiefs. She sits up and sets her feet on the floor, lets her seismic sense feel out every part of Sokka that’s littered across the room, his clothes in the closet and on the chair, his books on the shelf, and when Katara wakes up it’s _Toph who’s crying_ , because this is going to change _everything_.

This isn’t a tragedy, because even when Sokka goes back home to lead he creates a special place for them and the girls become just as familiar with their South Pole beds as they do in Republic City. 

Toph doesn’t like visiting, never gets used to the total loss of her most important sense, but Sokka greets her the same way each time, a hand holding hers, their children running up ahead. He’s where she belongs, so they go back and forth like this, he stays with them, they stay with him, sometimes just the girls when Toph has to work. 

This isn’t a tragedy, because love can survive even when circumstances change. 

This isn’t a tragedy because Lin and Su grow up happy, free and loved in equal measure, pushed by Toph and grounded by Sokka. ( _Mom! Uncle Sokka! Look what we made!_ ) This isn’t a tragedy because Bumi and Kya grow up just as much as Tenzin, even if their dad doesn’t always have time to be their dad, Toph tells him one year _you have to make sure they know you care_ so he does. 

This isn’t a tragedy because Toph can feel Sokka’s smile in her bones, because he never lets her go, because, for their whole lives, Aang and Katara across the table, Bumi tossing food into Su’s mouth at the other end, they sit next to each other at events, (events put on by a set of nations that are doing their best to thrive) muttering jokes to each other they way they have for a lifetime. 

This isn’t a tragedy. They like each other way too much for that.


End file.
